APSen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., left, stumps for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. in South Carolina in January.

Coburn, the 59-year-old junior senator from Oklahoma, exercised his "hold," the Senate's one-person veto, a cherished tradition that allows a single senator to block a bill's passage until problems -- or egos -- are fixed.

The problem wasn't Mount Hood.

Coburn is a Republican physician with many firm beliefs and almost as many enemies. Chief among his beliefs is that the U.S. government is spending itself into ruin and it's his job to restore fiscal order.

"What I'm trying to do, it doesn't have anything to do with being against what Oregonians want to do with their own land and their own money," Coburn said later, pointing out, "I have an Oregonian on my staff."

Rather, he said, "We can't do it. We don't have the money."

Even more ominous for Wyden and Smith and the Mount Hood wilderness, Coburn is no deal maker.

"I don't have any bill I'm trying to pass," Coburn said. "That's why it's such a rub, because the history up here is that people trade things out. Well, I don't want to trade. I want to fix what's wrong with our country in terms of the fiscal problems we have."

Home of "Dr. No"

There is no better place for an often lonely but determined voice than the U.S. Senate. It is an institution designed to breed compromise, and many of its most basic acts require unanimous consent, which means, of course, that all it takes is a single contrary voice.

"You can't even start the prayer in the Senate if one person objects," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

The power of one senator to stop a bill "was written expressly into our rules from the beginning," Alexander said, "in order to avoid what Alexis de Tocqueville called 'the tyranny of the majority.' "

So, if the only way to move a bill quickly is by unanimous consent, and if it requires new federal spending, and if the chamber is home to a senator with the nickname "Dr. No," there will be issues.

The title applies to Coburn's outlook on sex and drugs as well.

Coburn is famous on Capitol Hill for lunchtime lectures to new staffers and interns about the danger of sexually transmitted disease. The sessions include pizza and graphic images and Coburn's plea for abstinence and, short of that, condoms.

He's also a warrior against drugs. In 1996, while a member of the House, Coburn was the primary force behind a proposal requiring all members of Congress to submit to random drug testing. The initiative failed, but Coburn requires testing for himself and his staff. So far, all his results have come back negative.

"Held hostage"

The hold Coburn put on the Mount Hood bill left Wyden and Smith about to burst from frustration.

"He and I have worked together to resolve, it seems like, 100 different little issues, to try and come to this point of compromise that does satisfy the demands of so large a swath of the people of Oregon and provide this level of protection to an icon which is the beauty of Mount Hood."

Wyden was more direct.

"Our constituents just don't understand how a piece of legislation that has all of this consensus behind it and all of the energy and passion that Oregonians have brought to it, cannot pass tonight and be done quickly," he said.

"The reality is that the people of our state want this state icon protected and not held hostage."

Knowing that a vote could drain three or more days from the Senate's already tight schedule, Wyden and Smith had hoped to pass the bill by unanimous consent, a device commonly used for noncontroversial bills.

But the wilderness expansion would require $11 million in federal spending: tiny by Senate standards, but not offset by other cuts.

And that triggered Coburn.

Coburn is not shy or partisan in stopping bills. Tucked in his pocket are small pieces of paper listing more than 100 holds. The bills he has blocked or is currently blocking cover a wide variety of topics, from money for Washington's subway system to a program to make sure mentally unstable people can't buy guns to money for spinal cord research and traumatic brain injury.

"Dr. No" has earned many fuming adversaries, including leaders of his own party. In a State of the Union address, President Bush proudly offered a new corps of experts for emergency reconstruction and development overseas.

Coburn blocked the bill that would finance them.

To hold or not to hold

No one disputes Coburn's right to use a hold. The complaints come from what critics say is an indiscriminate, undisciplined and defiant use of power that causes havoc on the Senate floor.

"I only use them on issues that are of critical importance to the state of Washington" and the nation, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. For example, she held up a bill that would have allowed oil produced in the United States to be sold overseas at a time when gas was more than $3 a gallon.

Last year, Wyden put a hold on John Rizzo's nomination to be the CIA's chief lawyer out of concern that Rizzo failed to intervene in the CIA's internal debate about extreme interrogation methods. Rizzo, who served with the CIA for 32 years, was acting general counsel. His nomination was eventually withdrawn.

Senate historian Richard Baker said no precise records have been kept on holds, but most have been used to block nominations and to stop -- or slow -- legislation with national ramifications.

Baker and others who watch the Senate closely said senators rarely place holds on parochial issues such as the Mount Hood expansion, especially when both home state senators -- from different parties -- support the bill. Critics say Coburn's 100 holds is the record by far, though they can offer no direct proof.

Whatever his place in history, Coburn makes no apologies.

"A hold is nothing other than saying I don't want to pass this bill unless I get an opportunity to vote for it," he said. "If you agree to unanimous consent and you don't agree to the bill, what you're really doing is violating your oath to the Constitution."

With Coburn blocking Mount Hood, Wyden and Smith say the expansion will be folded into a larger wilderness bill that should move to the Senate floor this year. That bill is likely to contain a number of controversial items.